Bride to Be Guest Blogger Kelsey: All I Do is Plan Plan Plan

September 13, 2016

3 minute read

Image: Maggie Gaudean

Andy & I took Evie on a whirlwind trip up to Vermont for one last little slice of summer vacation (and some early Fall temps – I had a HOODIE on you guys!!!!). It’s always such an awesome respite to get up to Vermont and spend some time with family. But the real world is always still here waiting for me when I get back.

I apologize again for how bad I’ve been about blogging — my day job has kicked into a gear I’ve never yet encountered in my adult, working life, and my daughter has recently decided 5am is an acceptable time to wake up … so yeah, things are a bit rough, but I have some AWESOME posts on the calendar, so here’s hoping I can get my butt in gear and get them up for you guys. Let’s start today with another post from our newest bride-to-be guest blogger, Kelsey. We met her a while back and now she’s hear to share how she started planning her wedding. Take it away Kelsey!

Hey you came back! Or maybe you read this blog daily and happened to get stuck with me today. Hooray!

Now that you know a little bit about me, let’s dive into my epic wedding planning experience. I was originally planning a long engagement. Like 18 months. Then I started getting into this planning thing and realized, I do not want this to consume me for 18 months. I say consume with love, because it is a wonderful experience, but it’s also soul crushing, but like in a ‘there’s cake at the end of this’ kind of way.

So, I went from 18 months to nine months. And no I’m not pregnant. Why is that everyone’s first assumption when you say nine moths? Who gets married that pregnant on purpose? Right. Anyway once you hit the nine-month mark, things start moving quickly. You read everything you can get your hands on, you create an insane amount of spreadsheets that you don’t even need, and you suddenly have opinions about the color sage.

There are a ton of books out there, I am a spokesperson for none of them, but I can tell you that this one from The Knot was very helpful for me. It kept things organized. I read that cover to cover and then bought this from Bree. Then I created a Google Drive folder that the fiancé and I share.

Some of you may have a fiancé who just wants to show up on the wedding day. That’s totally cool. That’s not mine. He’s helpful with details and keeping me grounded like, ‘hey honey, don’t put that in the garbage disposal, that will not end well.’ Or ‘can we start a campaign to ban those stupid bamboo chairs from weddings?’ You know, real life stuff.

Now that I had place to dump all of my crazy, I needed to get a handle on what I could tackle and when. Because as awesome as it would be to quit my fulltime job and side hustle and just plan a wedding, it’s not realistic. So I made a timeline. Well I started with four timelines and I combined them into one. I took this one, this one, this one, and one from Bree and made a master timeline by month.

One thing I knew I wanted was a wedding coordinator. Someone between a ‘I’ll take it from here, just show up’ and ‘hi I’m [fill in the blank], let’s get you married today.’ For me, Capitol Romance was that balance. (Side note: while I’m Bree’s client, I am not being compensated for these posts, and all opinions are my own) So I secured Bree and got to work.